Mare Crisium and Palus Somni

Mare Crisium is one of my favorite Moon areas. There is a lot of details inside Crisium, but it is not easy to detect, because it is very fine. High aperture telescopes are needed to spot the small impact craters inside this maria, because its typical lengths are 1 or 2 kilometers wide.

Near Mare Crisium there is another big area called Palus Somni (below), that is visible in this picture made with an amateur telescope. The big and bright crater in the middle is Proclus:

The telescope used is a Celestron Nexstar 5SE and the camera is a Canon EOS 450d (Rebel XSi) DSLR. The picture actually is a mosaic made of two panes.

Dorsum Oppel

Dorsum Oppel is a wrinkle ridge of the Moon in Mare Crisium. 2 days after full moon is the best moment to observe it. It is a very large formation and the landscape along is quite impressive, full of small craters, tiny mountains and the smooth floor of Mare Crisium. It is important to reach a high magnification to enjoy the view (150x at least).

My setup is a 6-inch telescope, but I bet it is possible to observe it comfortably with a 4-inch refractor.

The bright and overexposed crater is Proclus. I have to work harder the dynamic range issue next time.

Swift and Peirce are the pair of craters in the upper side of the picture, near the lunar terminator. Below Peirce should be visible a 2 kms wide craterlet, but unfortunately my picture cannot yield such a resolution. According to a quick calculation, 3 kms is the smallest visible feature in theis image, and that corresponds to 1.5 arcseconds. A bit far still to the maximum theoretical resolution of a 6-inch telescope (that is around 0.7 arcseconds)

Yerkes is the big ghostly crater in the right side. Apparently there is a central peak in its center. I have been looking for a confirmation of the existence of that peak, but I haven’t found any reliable source where it is mentioned. Any hint here, I would be thankful…

Mare Crisium & Tranquillitatis

Two days after full moon Mare Crisium shows a nice landscape of mountains and shadows. Some of its inner crates are visible in this picture. The small crater Swift is on the limit of visibility. The big impact called Proclus and its rays are remarkable.

To take this image I used the Canon EOS 450d, Rebel XTI DSLR camera recording video subframes and later I stacked them up with Registax 5. Some small tweaks on Paint Shop Pro 9 and ready.

Mare Crisium

Mare Crisium is a big and round dark spot in the face of the Moon. It is easily visible through the naked eye on the right side (East) of the Moon. Inside Mare Crisium there are some interesting features, like small craters as Picard or Peirce. Proclus is the bright crater on the left (West) beyond the Crisium border. Some bright rays emerge from it crossing part of Mare Crisium. At north-east of Crisium (above right) there is a small and dark surface called Mare Anguis (the “serpent sea”). A big crater is visible at its left (West) known as crater Eimmart.

This picture was taken as the integration of 30 subframes stacked in Registax 5, from a video made with Casio Exilim EX-Z80 afocal on Meade Lightbridge 16-inches big Dobsonian, with no tracking.

Proclus and surroundings

Stacked from a video under Registax 5 and stitched with Autostitch, I got yesterday this Moon mosaic. Equipment: Meade Lightbridge 16″ and Casio Exilim EX-FS10.

Gauss crater

Gauss is the big crater near Mare Crisium. It is visible one day after Full Moon, because this is the exact moment for its best shadow projection. Berosus and Hahn are the two smaller craters near Gauss. It is visible a tiny central peak inside Hahn crater. And inside Gauss we can barely spot a shadow that Gauss B casts. Gauss B is a small crater to be guessed in Gauss.

Moon & Exilim

Casio Exilim EX-Z80 is a pocket digital camera, very useful to make photos during holidays or a trip. But it may also be used to do some kind of astrophotography. Its maximum zoom is 3x magnification. Here we see a comparison of a Moon shot with 1x and 3x zoom. With 1x zoom some big maria are visible, like Tranquillitatis, and at 3x even mare Crisium is captured.